After one half-life of a given radioisotope, only one half as much of the original number of atoms remains active.

Another way to look at this is that if the radiation intensity is cut in half; the source will have only half as many curies as it originally had.

In most cases, the half-life of a nuclide depends solely on its nuclear properties; it is not affected by temperature, chemical environment, magnetic and electric fields, or any other external factors.

The half-life of any nuclide is also believed to be constant through time.

Nuclides useful for radiometric dating have half-lives ranging from a few thousand to a few billion years.Radiometric dating is a technique used to date materials based on a knowledge of the decay rates of naturally occurring isotopes, and the current abundances.It is our principal source of information about the age of the Earth and a significant source of information about rates of evolutionary change.This transformation is accomplished by the emission of particles such as electrons (known as beta decay) or alpha particles.While the moment in time at which a particular nucleus decays is random, a collection of atoms of a radioactive nuclide decays exponentially at a rate described by a parameter known as the half-life, usually given in units of years when discussing dating techniques.

In the ideal case, the material will incorporate a parent nuclide and reject the daughter nuclide.

One thought on “half life used radiometric dating”

The promotion tab is scheduled for a major makeover – Google is starting to display promotional emails in a image-oriented design inspired by Pinterest. Incorporating numbers into your subject line attracts attention, as our brains are naturally drawn to digits.